A medley of missiles

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Fascinating stuff, seems a shame to return to the original theme of this thread, so here are a few ideas about missiles in MoT.

I have raised this before on another thread, but nuclear warheads, especially on torpedoes (heavy missiles?) are greatly underpowered, especially on a contact hit.

On a similar point, what would the collision damage caused by a light figter (10 tons) impacting a space ship while travelling at thrust 6 be? What about if it was flown by an AI, or perhaps in low tech versions as a drone, and carried a moderate size h-bomb (in the 1 Mega Ton range(weight can be found by stripping out the pulse laser, most of the fuel, the cargo and part of the cockpit)), which will be detonated inside the target after the "missile" has forced it's way into the armour.

Not impressed?, take the torpedo boat from HG as a starting place (40 tons, thrust 10), make the same adjustments and then release 50 or so at a dreadnought. Give them lots of ECM, stand off bomb pumped warheads as well as the main (impact, and large) nuke, and masses of submunitions to distract, deflect and destroy counter measures. With 10 points of armour it will be almost immune to lasers, and may well survive particle beam hits as well. Very expensive, but so are capital ships.

Are these super heavy missiles? (or is this just larger and more scarey versions of combat wasps from the "Night's Dawn" trilogy)?

Egil

 

[DFW]

Not impressed?,

Not really. If these were used, Capital ships would just deploy kinetic kill vehicles scaled appropriately to take out the 40t "killers". As they would be much smaller than the 40t adversary, they could carry more. Move, counter move. Threat nullified.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I have raised this before on another thread, but nuclear warheads, especially on torpedoes (heavy missiles?) are greatly underpowered, especially on a contact hit.

Yep.

Traveller has always been a small scale game at heart. The spirt of ship combat has always been that of much of the rest of the game, wooden ships of the 16-18th century moved into space.

Everything scales with that and has done for 30 odd years.

Ships coming along side each other and exchanging fire for hours before one or both are wrecked.

A nuke torpedo does 6d damage, its 2.5 tons so you would think it had a high kilo range or low megaton range warhead tucked in there somewhere.

6D is an average of 21, against a ship without any armour at all that is 2 double hits. Wohoo that will hurt that pesky little civilian ship

The crew radiation hit is more scary.

The biggest damage bay weapon will do, against a ship without armour, a triple hit and a double hit. If one of those is weapon and one hull the target is basicly intact. Weapons damage ships slowly which is fine for a sci fi recreation of "wooden walls" and "hearts of oak" but can be a bit slow for an evenings game

 

[rust]

The biggest damage bay weapon will do, against a ship without armour, a triple hit and a double hit. If one of those is weapon and one hull the target is basicly intact. Weapons damage ships slowly which is fine for a sci fi recreation of "wooden walls" and "hearts of oak" but can be a bit slow for an evenings game

This was one of the first things I changed for my universe, although space
ship combat is extremely rare there. Now each hit except hull and structu-
re hits is a "third hit" that completely destroys the system of the ship that
is hit - and kills everyone there at the time. :twisted:

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Not impressed?,

Not really. If these were used, Capital ships would just deploy kinetic kill vehicles scaled appropriately to take out the 40t "killers". As they would be much smaller than the 40t adversary, they could carry more. Move, counter move. Threat nullified.

Of course, and the 40t killers will also carry anti anti missiles, kinetic kill or otherwise, to deal with the capital ship counter measures.

I am not even begin to try to calulate it, but if even one 40t super missile impacts a capital ship at thrust 10, that is a big hole, if a largish nuke then detonates, then that is a very big hole.

Egil

 

[DFW]

Of course, and the 40t killers will also carry anti anti missiles, kinetic kill or otherwise, to deal with the capital ship counter measures.

I doubt it. You've already spec'd a ton of stuff into just a 40 hull. The capital ships could afford to launch ~5 1 ton kill vehicles at each one. A 40t ship can't contain weapon launch capability sufficient to counter that at one time.

Again, threat countered.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

The biggest damage bay weapon will do, against a ship without armour, a triple hit and a double hit. If one of those is weapon and one hull the target is basicly intact. Weapons damage ships slowly which is fine for a sci fi recreation of "wooden walls" and "hearts of oak" but can be a bit slow for an evenings game

This was one of the first things I changed for my universe, although space
ship combat is extremely rare there. Now each hit except hull and structu-
re hits is a "third hit" that completely destroys the system of the ship that
is hit - and kills everyone there at the time. :twisted:

Ouch, no wonder ship combat is rare in YTU, Rust.

Basically, I tend to agree that space ships are likely to be more fragile and vulnerable to damage than the traveller "flying brinks", however, my group is playing traveller as space opera, so we are going with the Trav conventions (which does, to be fair having recently fought a couple of small ship enagagements, give quite a satisfying game).

Ok, I withdraw large kinetic kill missiles and effective nuclear warheads, on the basis that neither Drake nor Nelson had to worry about them.

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Of course, and the 40t killers will also carry anti anti missiles, kinetic kill or otherwise, to deal with the capital ship counter measures.

I doubt it. You've already spec'd a ton of stuff into just a 40 hull. The capital ships could afford to launch ~5 1 ton kill vehicles at each one. A 40t ship can't contain weapon launch capability sufficient to counter that at one time.

Again, threat countered.

Yeah, I need to do a proper design job on the super missiles, it would need to carry sufficiecnt point defence to keep away anti missile missiles, remember that swarms of super missiles would be launched againstt capital ships, possibly behind swarms of smaller ordanance, which would be intended to clear a path throungh countermeasures and anti missile missiles.

Big ask, yes, expensive, yes, doomed to fail, no, more likely than laser beam and particle beam engagements, I think so.

Egil

 

[DFW]

Yeah, I need to do a proper design job on the super missiles, it would need to carry sufficiecnt point defence to keep away anti missile missiles, remember that swarms of super missiles would be launched againstt capital ships, possibly behind swarms of smaller ordanance, which would be intended to clear a path throungh countermeasures and anti missile missiles.

Big ask, yes, expensive, yes, doomed to fail, no, more likely than laser beam and particle beam engagements, I think so.

Egil

There's one huge flaw in your concept. You are assuming that the force with the super missiles is larger (more tonnage) than the opposing fleet.

I've worked out countless fleets in Trav over the last 30+ years. With your concept you will always use more tonnage on these fairly easily defeatable weapons than your opponent will use in countering them. That means the opposition will have more tonnage available for armor, & offensive weapons that aren't as easily countered. It is purely a numbers game. It does take designing and fighting fleet sized elements for a while to fully grasp the dynamics.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Yeah, I need to do a proper design job on the super missiles, it would need to carry sufficiecnt point defence to keep away anti missile missiles, remember that swarms of super missiles would be launched againstt capital ships, possibly behind swarms of smaller ordanance, which would be intended to clear a path throungh countermeasures and anti missile missiles.

Big ask, yes, expensive, yes, doomed to fail, no, more likely than laser beam and particle beam engagements, I think so.

Egil

There's one huge flaw in your concept. You are assuming that the force with the super missiles is larger (more tonnage) than the opposing fleet.

I've worked out countless fleets in Trav over the last 30+ years. With your concept you will always use more tonnage on these fairly easily defeatable weapons than your opponent will use in countering them. That means the opposition will have more tonnage available for armor, & offensive weapons that aren't as easily countered. It is purely a numbers game. It does take designing and fighting fleet sized elements for a while to fully grasp the dynamics.

I'll get back to you round about August 2039, when I have done the 30 years ship designing!

Egil

 

[DFW]

I'll get back to you round about August 2039, when I have done the 30 years ship designing!

Egil

Naw, just throw them up against someone who hasn't designed before.

 

[DFW]

Two hours plus with a M6 ship that is ready to go. Plenty of time for a quick smash and fade from a lurking corsair and at that range unless you have a network of sensors proceding and trailing anything happening will be far outside planet based sensor range.

Actually, orbital based sensors even at our TL can detect heat sources out that far. There is no place to hide in open space. From the main rule book: "Surprise
Stealth is virtually impossible in space – a spacecraft shows up
as a hot spot against the cold, so unless it is hiding behind an
asteroid or other object, it is easy to detect."

So, any ship loitering in open space in the inner system is going to be spotted and tracked long before it attacks anything. The local SDB is going to run these guys down as soon as they show up.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well there has to be some use for those stealth hulls after all.

If they don't hide you powered down they are a bit useless.

With a stealth hull, costing Mcr0.1 per ton a 400 ton raider pays Mcr40, not that expensive against a Mcr250 ship.

Stealth gives you a -4 on sensor rolls or could be considered to lower detectable range by a few bands.

Hey these pirates are everywhere, there must be someway to make piracy work or they would be out of business

 

[DFW]

Well there has to be some use for those stealth hulls after all.

If they don't hide you powered down they are a bit useless.

With a stealth hull, costing Mcr0.1 per ton a 400 ton raider pays Mcr40, not that expensive against a Mcr250 ship.

Stealth gives you a -4 on sensor rolls or could be considered to lower detectable range by a few bands.

Hey these pirates are everywhere, there must be someway to make piracy work or they would be out of business

Well, it could work for an hour or two max. If you don't expel the heat, your ship burns up from the inside out. Powering down doesn't help with the heat. Your entire ship inside and out, would have to be slightly above absolute zero to not show up on heat sensors. They got the rule correct in the combat section I quoted.

The stealth option works for all but heat. Just park in front of an equally hot planet, or in line with the systems star...

 

[rust]

If they don't hide you powered down they are a bit useless.

Even if they would hide a ship once it is powered down, the ship still has
to get to the position where it wants to hide - and a ship that moves to a
spot that would be nice for a pirate to wait for prey and then "disappears"
from the sensors there would be a very obvious invitation for a very un-
friendly SDB visit.

 

[locarno24]

Even if they would hide a ship once it is powered down, the ship still has to get to the position where it wants to hide - and a ship that moves to a spot that would be nice for a pirate to wait for prey and then "disappears" from the sensors there would be a very obvious invitation for a very un-friendly SDB visit.

True, but that depends on how much delta V you can apply with a gravetic M-drive without showing up -and how accurately your velocity was pegged at the point you powered down.

Well, it could work for an hour or two max. If you don't expel the heat, your ship burns up from the inside out. Powering down doesn't help with the heat. Your entire ship inside and out, would have to be slightly above absolute zero to not show up on heat sensors. They got the rule correct in the combat section I quoted.

The stealth option works for all but heat. Just park in front of an equally hot planet, or in line with the systems star...

Agreed. You can be stealthy by using refrigerators and heat sinks to expel heat in a specific direction, it's ok in a combat situation, or when ambushing a specific, located enemy (because you can point the 'cold' side at them).

However, it's not so great for lying in ambush somewhere, because you can't garuantee that nobody will approach from your 'hot' side.

To make matters worse, the 'hot' side will be even more detectable (since all the heat removed from your 'cold' side, plus all the heat generated by the cooling system, is being radiated out in that direction)

The smaller you want your radiating arc to be, the hotter that radiating arc gets because you don't actually reduce the amount of heat you have to radiate away per second to keep the temperature constant. As noted, being close enough to a planet, asteroid or something else that you can point your radiating 'tail' at it (or even just hide in its own IR radiation) is the only way to stay hidden indefinitely against an opponent approaching from an unpredictable direction.



You have, of course, got a sort of heat sink on board provided you're fuelled up - each 10 dTons of liquid hydrogen can sink 143 MJ of heat per degree you're prepared to let it warm (which will depend on what the storage temperature starts at - at about 20K it starts to vapourise and you have bad, bad mojo occuring).

In a big ship with a Jump-3 or Jump-4 drive and/or multiple jumps worth of fuel, that's going to be quite a lot of heat provided you're lying quiet (or at least flying ballistically).

Of course it's not that much if you're going to start running any system like the M-drive, weapons or active sensors, but it can probably sink the heat from life support for a while, especially if you have the ability to throttle back the heat from power generation (i.e. you have a chemical battery or something similar)

 

[DFW]

Yep, no matter what you do, it is for a very limited time. Any system other than a backwater in a frontier region will pick you up on sensors scattered around the system once you start moving. Probably why pirates only lurk in low tech backwaters systems.

As a historic note. In the 18th century, England (high tech, patrolled waters) only had problems from one raider. That was U.S. heavy frigates that out gunned, out armoured all but ships of the line.

 

[SSWarlock]

Speaking of heat sinks... *sound of a can of worms being opened*

Can the Ancient portals from the original (i.e. CT version) "Secret of the Ancients" adventure be used as a heat sink? According to their description,

The Ancient installation in the Pocket automatically determines energy levels at the site of each portal and alters the energy of all objects passing through a Portal to match that of the receiving Portal...

Velocity reduction effects slow everything traveling at greater than 100 meters per second to that speed. As a result, no electromagnetic energy, including visible light, can pass through a Portal...

Electronics connections are also severed by a Portal. Wire connections simply cease to function.

Since the portal system uses a planet as its energy sink, could this also allow enough on-board heat to be fed into the Portal system to reduce a ship's heat signature to a tactically useful level? What needs to be taken into account to see if this is possible?

I'm a somewhat math-challenged non-scientist but I'll slog through anything anyone cares to post and I've been collecting Traveller material since the last 70's so I likely have any publications being referenced.

 

[DFW]

Can the Ancient portals from the original (i.e. CT version) "Secret of the Ancients" adventure be used as a heat sink?

Not according to the description you posted: "no electromagnetic energy, including visible light, can pass through a Portal... "

IR is part of the EM spectrum...

 

[rust]

Can the Ancient portals from the original (i.e. CT version) "Secret of the Ancients" adventure be used as a heat sink?

As DFW mentioned, most probably not.

However, if this kind of technology is available, a heat sink is no longer
necessary to hide a ship. Just stay on the other side of the portal and
observe the region with a densitometer (no electromagnetic sensor).
Once your prey is in position for the attack, move through the portal -
"appearing from nowhere" - to attack the prey, and afterwards retreat
back through the portal.

Unless your enemies have some means to detect the existence of the por-
tal, they will take quite some time to find out how the mysterious attacks
of the "ghost ship from nowhere" work.